'You can't describe the atmosphere in the clubs when Broken Glass were there," says Jason Orange. Once again a member of Take That, Orange is recalling the nights more than 20 years ago when he would show off his breakdancing moves with the Street Machine crew, and their rivals Broken Glass were doing the same.

The kids, as they then were, didn't just work in clubs. They'd lay down pieces of lino in the street and, in a blur of Sergio Tacchini and Fila tracksuits, Puma trainers, sovereign rings and rope chains, throw a complex series of dance shapes. Broken Glass were the pioneers, Street Machine the upstarts; between them they imported New York's street culture to the greyness of Manchester. They would be out in all weather, battling to prove themselves the best breakdancers in town, while a ghettoblaster pumped out hip-hop and electro. As their skills developed, the crews' fame spread, and soon they were winning competitions across the UK, setting the breakdancing standard with their complex moves.

The crews reunited recently in Liverpool for a one-off event in tribute to Royston Swanson of Broken Glass, who died this year. There, a new generation of UK breakdancers treated them with respect bordering on reverence. And so keen is Orange to relive those days that he has travelled back to Manchester for the day to be photographed by the Guardian with his old friends for a second reunion.

The roots of breakdancing go back to the mid-70s, when Kool DJ Herc, a Jamaican-born New Yorker, started mixing funk records to create a seamless flow of dance beats, which he called "cutting breaks". The boys who danced to those breaks he called B-boys, meaning either "boogie boys" or "break boys". At block parties, Herc would shout out "B-boys go down!" and the dancers would hit the floor with an upgraded version of what they did on the streets - a mixture of dance styles and martial arts moves they adapted from kung-fu films.

Hip-hop culture first made a serious impression in the UK in 1982, when Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 released The Message, a piece of social commentary that made an impact on young black Britons in the aftermath of the 1981 riots. But the record that brought breakdancing to the UK was Malcolm McLaren's Buffalo Gals. The Sex Pistols' former manager had seen breakdancing on a trip to New York, and used it in the video for his single.

"It was the first video where you could see a DJ scratching," says Greg Wilson, the first electro DJ at Legend in Manchester, who would later manage Broken Glass. "The World Famous Supreme Team were scratching a seven-inch single, and I remember naively wondering at the time if it had to be a seven-inch. The video showed three of the four elements of hip-hop - scratching, graffiti and breakdancing - all, except rapping, introduced into this country from one video."

Within months, the founder members of Manchester's breakdancing crews had worked out the moves on the video and added their own spin. "When I first saw people doing those moves, spinning on their heads, I couldn't believe it," says Benji Reid, former member of Broken Glass and now a playwright and professional dancer. "It was the first time you had seen a physical depiction of the culture. You got to see the dancers doing headspins, backspins. It showed us the moves."

Wilson was DJing at the Star Bar in Huddersfield one night in 1982 when he played a promotional copy of the Buffalo Gals video before it was ever shown on TV. He remembers the impact it had on the club's regulars. He recalls them standing and staring at the video as it was repeated, offering them a crash course in hip-hop street culture.

From the start, UK breakdancing was on a different course from the US version. It took different musical cues, says Street Machine's Evo, who was three times British breakdancing champion. "In New York they would dance to original funk breaks, James Brown, stuff like that. Over here it was electro, and that changed the way we danced."

At first, the breakdancers kept their moves behind closed doors, practising on the lino in their kitchens. The first people to show their breakdancing in clubs were those Huddersfield lads, one Tuesday night at Wigan Pier in 1983. Greg Wilson was playing an electro set at one of the venue's funk nights when the Huddersfield crew hit the floor, prompting the early Manchester breakers who were also there that night to take up the challenge. "The people from Huddersfield came on to the floor first, but the Manchester kids responded immediately with their moves. I soon found out that the Broken Glass Street Crew, as they were known then, had been practising, getting ready to unleash in a club," remembers Wilson.

Broken Glass had been working on their routines in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester city centre; breakdancing was a street form. "We'd be out there battling, seeing who had the best moves," says Reid. "It kept us out of trouble. When I joined Broken Glass, I had to work hard. You had to rehearse. Go out on tour." His friend Sefton, who became a star human beatbox, agrees: "It gave us a life. I was a latchkey kid, I was 12 or 13 at the time, and I would go round the country doing the human beatbox, playing to 5,000 people in London. That was something."

Broken Glass made a crucial breakthrough later in 1983 at the Hacienda, the notorious Factory records club in Manchester, where they were invited to dance at Greg Wilson's weekly electro set. At first, the indie kids in the club were bemused, but the dancing helped turn them on to electro, paving the way for the house revolution a few years later, and providing an often overlooked link in the city's musical heritage. Perhaps they taught Manchester how to dance. They certainly gave a curiously Mancunian bent to an American street culture.

By 1984, both Broken Glass and Street Machine were touring the country. Broken Glass would perform at Rock City in Nottingham and the Powerhouse in Birmingham. They appeared on TV, and danced at the Hacienda the night Madonna made her first appearance in the UK. They appeared in magazines, and even cut their own single. The crew was 20-strong at any given time, with usually a dozen or so turning up to dance. They were in sufficient demand that they could make a living from touring.

But breakdancing's first flush did not last long. Many of the original British breakers could see that the scene was no longer cutting edge, and moved on, looking for something new. Some, including Reid, started dancing professionally. Orange joined Take That, and another original breaker, Kermit, joined local rap crew Ruthless Rap Assasins, before forming Black Grape with the Happy Mondays' Sean Ryder. Some, like Evo, became breakdancing champions, while others took up martial arts and boxing.

And while they moved on, hip-hop gradually became the most influential force within youth culture, permeating everything from music to fashion to TV.

The friendship and respect the men, now pushing 40, hold for each other is evident as they reconvene at the Y Club gym in central Manchester for the Guardian's photo shoot. And so is the fondness with which they recall their days on the dance floors, throwing moves they can still recreate. "All those different crews at the time - the competition was fierce. It was like the film The Warriors, without the violence," says Orange. "They were the most important days of my life."